My half-sister grabs my wrist with her other hand and pulls, pulls, pulls like she’s trying to draw me up from a well. But the Unformed Lands aren’t ready to let me go. I feel the fracturing of unreality take hold of my legs, pulling me apart, pulling me back down into its depths. Still I don’t release Lyria’s hand, even as I drag it down intothe scrying bowl with me, pulling her arm beyond the confines of the bowl, down through the floor, down into the darkness with me. She grips the edge of porcelain, fighting to not let herself be hauled out of her own reality while still unwilling to let go of me.
“I’ll find you, Ilsevel!” she shouts, staring down through the water into my eyes. “I’ll find you again, I swear!”
Then she lets go. And I sink. Like a stone, back into the void. Little bubbles of air and time and sparks of green magic surround me, floating up to that shrinking window into the mortal world even as I fall farther and farther from it.
Perhaps this is better, I tell myself as existence begins to unravel into threads once more. Perhaps I was happier in this state. Mortal emotions are so unpleasant, all that fear and loathing and longing and . . . and what was that last one? The one which stabs so deep?
Love.
As the word floats through my disintegrating awareness, I become conscious suddenly of a single shining thread among my other many threads of unraveling selfhood. It glitters with songlight, a searing fire of the soul, bright as the center of a star, but so thin, so delicate. Stretching out across the vastness of the void. Not part of the essential me and yet . . . and yet vital somehow. A song, singing to my own multitudinous harmonies of being. I cannot help but sing back. I am so unraveled, I have no mouth anymore, but I set all my particles humming and emit a pulse of soulfire, rippling along that searing-bright thread.
Diira.
An instant later—an eon—a heartbeat—a response resonates back.
Vellara.
Suddenly I find I am regaining solid mass once more. My threaded particles re-gather, re-knit far more swiftly than ever before, and I don’t fight it. In fact, I want it. I want it with a desperation I did not remember I knew how to feel. As that song hits me, runs through me, pulling me back together faster and faster, I light up with all those terrible mortal feelings, every last one of them. Hope, joy, despair, dread, and, most of all, love. Love, love, love, singing back and forth, up and down that shining starlight song-cord.
Diira! Diira, I’m here! Diira, come find me!
She appears—manifesting out of the void, a vast being beyond all mortal comprehension. The size of a world, of a planet, burning and dreadful and overwhelming with song. Her eyes, like blazing suns, gaze down upon me.
Vellara,she sings through formless eternities.I am here.
I reach for her. Even as I do so, my threaded parts form something like a hand, shining with her starfire song. Though I am but a speck of dust before her vastness, she bows her head, becomes smaller, becomes comprehensible. She places her muzzle against my palm, and I know peace.
Diira, you found me. You found me!I pull her lovely headtoward me, press my face against the licorneir’s cheek, and weep into her velvet-soft fur. My tears float away into the void, like flakes of shining ash and notes of song.
I will always find you, Vellara,she sings into my heart.For you are my heartbond. Wherever you go, I will follow.
I climb onto her back. It is strange to feel myself clad in a mortal-shaped frame once more, here in a space without physical form. But the power of her song holds me together and, though a small part of me resents the confinement, I am glad. I mount her fire-gleaming back, wrap my fingers in her mane, and let the song of my soul join with hers.
Carry me home, Diira,I sing.Carry me back to Taar.
She lowers her head. From the tip of her coiled horn, pure light streams forth, burning a path of silver through the emptiness. With a triumphant cry, her powerful body breaks into a gallop, each hoofbeat glancing off worlds and realities, as she streaks through the formlessness like a shooting star, trailing song in her wake.
8
TAAR
The instant they unbind her, Diira streaks for the edge of our world, lunging into that wavering un-reality while the echoes of her roar still reverberate in the ears of the onlookers. My heart twists at the sight. How is this not, in and of itself, proof of the bond she and Ilsevel share? Surely not a soul here who remembers Elashor’s ordeal has forgotten the way his licorneir cantered up and down the boundary, singing sadly but unable or unwilling to make the plunge. Even when she collapsed into hearttorn madness, no one could say for certain whether their bond was false or true. Only that it was not strong enough to bring him back.
But Diira does not hesitate. Not for a moment. Will the sight of her desperation and resolve move the stony hearts of my people?
She vanishes, just as Ilsevel vanished before her, passing fromplains of perception into realms beyond thought and time. My soul shudders. But I cannot let doubt break me now. I believe in Ilsevel, in this miraculous bond she and her licorneir have formed. I believe as well in my own connection to her, in thevelrawhich stretches out from its source at my heart, bright and true.
Only . . . only it feels strangely unanchored now. I may not be collapsing in pain or sudden vulnerability. In fact, it feels as though she’s not gone far from me at all, as though she’s somehow remained close, a mere breath away from my flesh and spirit. But whateversheis no longer fits within my comprehension. I love her without knowing what she has become.
My grip on Elydark’s mane tightens, knuckles standing out hard and white. All I can do now is wait. And pray. But I struggle to find words for a prayer. Instead I let the wordless cry of my soul blend with Elydark’s eternal song and send that music winging to heaven, a resonant petition. May the gods receive it and look upon me with grace.
Many eyes watch me, some subtly, some with invasive curiosity. Unable to bear gazing upon that unfathomable un-reality in front of them, my people turn their attention to me instead. I feel each and every gaze like brands against my flesh. From the time-hardened contemplation of the elders to the youthful wonder of the adolescent riders, and all the various colors of thought and feeling in between. The fear, the resentment, the uncertainty.
I do not turn to face them. No, not even Halaema or Kildorath,though I feel their gazes most keenly. My eyes fix forward, risking the madness which threatens all who stare too long into the Unformed Lands. I study that distant and yet too-near horizon, watch the subtle shifts of air, the warps of unanchored time and reality. All the while, I hold onto that gold thread of thevelra,unwilling to let it go. As long as there’s a chance she is still out there on the other end of it, I will never let go.
Time passes. The sun arcs across the distant sky, its rays never penetrating nor influencing the visible land beyond the invisible boundary. All that vista remains gray and dull and faintly shimmering, even as our world descends into evening. The riders begin to break formation. Some turn and ride back for the Hidden City, convinced the test is over already and there’s nothing more to witness. Others peel away, retreating from the boundary to make small campfires at a safe distance and bed down for a night of waiting. Eventually only Halaema and Kildorath remain. They sit astride their mounts some distance off to my right and make no effort to draw near. I don’t know if they remain out of some sense of solidarity with theirluinar, or if they are simply waiting for me to concede defeat. It changes nothing either way.
I breathe out a long sigh. Then, my heart twisting like a knife in my breast, I send out another song along the golden thread.Ilsevel,I sing.Come back to me, my zylnala.
